Abstract: The term "critical discourse" was not indigenous in China, and Liang Qichao and Wang Guowei were believed to bring it as a Kantian concept into Chinese knowledge and discourse system. But Liang gradually strayed from the neutral and rational Kantian concept to relate it with negative political nuance. The denunciative negative nuance was increasingly reinforced in the years from the May 4^th New Culture Movement to the 10-year Cultural Revolution. The 1980s saw the return of the implications of the term from the highly political to the rational and neutral, with significant flexibility and tolerance. This return helped to redress the tendency of criticism toward the popular culture in the 1990s. In the current context of market economy development and more interdisciplinary studies, the term may be seeing greater potential and future.

Key words: critical discourse, localization in China, political turn, rational return